The Asia Pacific Headhunter

How to Overcome Your Biggest Career Fears

Fear. We all have it. Even the toughest of the tough have had something they've been afraid of at some point in life. When it comes to your career, fear is the thing you need to be most scared of. Why? Because it paralyzes you, stops you from acting, stops you from believing in yourself. Stops you from focusing on a solution. 

Thankfully the solution to fear is pretty easy. Mark Twain or Ralph Waldo Emerson may have said, "do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain". And it still applies now. (Those two seem to get credit for every quote. Who was their PR Agent?). 

Still before you get to that point you need to admit you fear something. Admitting and isolating your fears is the real first step. If you can't be aware enough to admit those fears then you'll probably never try to overcome them. You'll end up blaming things that are outside of your control. You also have to be careful of that inner bully. The one that instead of admitting your fears, judges and then beats you into submission for not facing them. The bully is not a solution provider, I personally think they're a mental remnant from your time as a baby when you liked destroying things.

So when it comes to your job or career next time you find yourself beating yourself up, ask yourself a different question. What am I afraid of here? And instead of beating myself up, what can I do to face that fear?

 

Why It's Tough to Manage Your Career By Yourself

I think this is a point we all understand instinctively, but can be easy to lose sight of in our every day life. When we analyze how our career is going we are always looking back on the past. This creates a real problem in the now, in that opportunities in the present don't always look like opportunities from our past. So our analysis of the past really doesn't help us that much in reacting to what's happening now, or worse it actually hurts us.

This isn't true of just your career, you can see this EVERYWHERE in life. There are entire industries built around analyzing what's happened in the past. But we all know that all that analysis doesn't necessarily help people react or act in the optimum way in the present. Professional sports and the finance industry are two areas where this seems to be particularly easy to see.

For yourself though just keeping this point in mind can be a quick solution. Be ready to look at things that initially fail based on your experiences in the past. It doesn't mean disregard that previous analysis, but try to look at it with both a new view and with the benefit of the old. This is particularly true if you're stressed, overworked and tired. At those times many things that happen in the present that will set off alarms from the past. But the fact is those things might be opportunities for you.

Another quick solution is to get an outside view. You'll be surprised how much an outsiders view of your career can help you see things that you've missed. It won't make their view perfect but they'll almost always come up with something different for you to consider.

Making Shift Happen

I find most people characterize events in their life in basically two ways, things that happen to them, and things they make happen.

 Normally you'll find the bad things are the ones that happen, while the good are the ones they made happen.

 A major illness happens to them, being made redundant, that happened to them, the recession happened to them. 

On the other hand they got the raise, they got their MBA, or they made a million dollars. 

The language is subtle, but specific. 

One points to themselves and the other points away from them towards somewhere else, although where exactly we usually can't tell.

When it comes to being happy at work I'm going to suggest you stop using any term that describes things happening to you. 

Even up to the point of ridiculous. 

Why? Because I think that sometimes when we describe things happening to us, we forget about our ability to react to what happened.

That's where I see a problem. Your reaction is your chance to make things happen. 

Don't throw that chance away, open your mind to the fact that there is a real opportunity there for you. 

When you tell yourself you want to be great at something what does life give you? Does it make you great, or does it give you chances to practice being great? 

When you tell yourself you want to be someone people respect, does life give you that respect, or chances to do things people will respect you for doing?

When you tell yourself you want to be rich, does life give you money, or chances to work hard and earn it?

Are you starting to get the picture?

Some time soon at work life is going to give you a chance to be the person you want to be, wise, wealthy, intelligent and successful. 

At the time you're almost guaranteed to NOT think that life is giving you a chance to be those things, you're more likely to think it's kicking you in the ass.

But when you have that moment try open your mind, relax, be with it. And then react, right at that point it's going to be what you make happen that makes the difference.  

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Are you a software developer in Auckland, want to be happier at work? Click here!

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Shift Happens

It seems 2010 is going to be a massive year of career shift for many people. Surveys in most developed markets point to massive numbers of skilled candidates intending to change jobs this year. Some of the results include:

• 60% of US Workers intend to leave their jobs in 2010 (link).
• 25% of employees believe organization morale is low (link).
• 20% of workers plan to switch careers and/or industries within two years (link).
• Only 45% of US employers are satisfied with their jobs in 2009 down from 61% in 1987 (link).
• Only 53% of Singapore financial workers are satisfied with their jobs (link).

It makes you wonder what really happened with all these people, what is it that causes them to have so much suffering at work? I talk with a lot of people in regards to their situation at work, most will admit to wanting more of something. Sometimes when we flesh it out their needs are quite realistic. Other times they are looking for an easier path to a better reward, which unfortunately, rarely exists. Meshing reality with what the person wants is often the biggest part of understanding whether someone really needs to make a job change in order to improve their satisfaction.

This can be really difficult to do alone, even for the most experienced candidates. After all, if you're good at your job you are busy doing that, not analyzing the marketplace and/or your skills and abilities to see whether you are ready for a big move. In order to make the decision on whether the time is right I recommend answering a few of the following questions. Be honest with yourself, anything else is pointless.

• What are my biggest achievements in my current position?
• How have I grown in the last 2 years?
• Am I giving 100% of my effort to the work I'm doing?
• If not, why am I holding back?
• If yes, then is the work satisfying me?
• If it's not satisfying me despite my effort, what are the areas that are holding me back?
• Can I improve on those areas in my current position?
• If I made a job change what are all the areas I need fulfilled to make me happy in a new position. 
• Being that nowhere is perfect. What would I be willing to give up/take on to make that move anyway?

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Are you a software developer in Auckland, want to be happier at work? Click here!

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Working While In Pain

Being in constant pain is something a LOT of people deal with everyday. And dealing with it successfully is something I'm personally interested in learning more about. To make a long story short I have an injury that has kept me in almost constant pain for 6 months now. I won't go into what exactly right now but while researching and trying to learn more about my problem and dealing with it I found myself looking into how pro athletes deal with the pain they have.

It seems there is a tonne of different things they do. Many take the painkiller route, and others don't take any painkillers at all. In some cases it's extreme. I've posted below a video of a hit Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin took in a game last year. Quite frankly it's sickening, as it was described after the game many players had never heard a hit so loud on the playing field. Boldin was left unconscious with blood pouring out of his mouth and nose. He had a fractured face that required 8 plates be inserted and his jaw wired. The amazing thing is he returned to the playing field 2 weeks later and during his time off he refused to take painkillers!

Now obviously this is a tough guy to say the very least! And I really wonder how on earth he did it? Athletes push themselves though pain all the time but scientists know there is a big difference between what is known as exertional pain vs. acute pain (there is an interesting article in the NY Times about that if you follow the link). So what is Anquan Boldin's secret? Who knows, of course maybe there isn't a secret at all, he just has a really high threshold for pain.

Either way I don't mind admitting I've found it tough myself. I've tried hard to eliminate painkillers and I've had some good success. But I've also used them to help get over nasty humps. I've also tried to take a break from activities that exacerbate the problem. But the reality I've discovered is that constant pain means dealing with it while continuing to get on with life, not just taking time off when it's there.

So I'm currently working on a plan and system that'll work for me to get through it and back to the level of work I was at previously. It's working out pretty well as I've returned to most tasks at least around the home. Work requires a whole new mindset and I'm not sure how that'll look just yet but I'm very confident it will work out. It's actually pretty fun to be thinking of how to do it. If anyone else has any suggestions at all as always I'm interested in hearing them. You can drop them in the comments or feel free to catch me on twitter. I'll also be updating the blog with the ideas and activities that work for me.

Forget Career Success What About Some Career Happiness!

I've spoken to a lot of people about success in their career, but more often I speak to people who are straight up unhappy. They haven't lost interest in being successful in their career but they know they aren't happy where they are right now, or happy doing what they are doing. These are smart people so if you quiz them on career success they'll answer intelligently about what they want to do and where they'll be when they succeed. Unfortunately, they rarely get that success because the real problem is that they aren't having any joy in their journey.

What's more important career success or career happiness? I've decided it's the latter and so I've started advising my candidates and clients that they need to spend some of their time really investigating where they find the joy and happiness in their career. For some of them focusing on this area has helped them engage with jobs they thought they were sick of!

So, how do you focus on finding more joy at work? Sometimes a problem defined is half way to solving that problem, so you need to investigate yourself in order to find job happiness. Asking the following questions might be a nice way to start exploring your thoughts:

1. What are the jobs/projects you've done in the past that you've felt the most engaged in?
2. When do you feel most happy at work?
3. Why do you think you felt engaged when doing those job/projects you identified?
4. Why do you think you felt most happy in the times you did?
5. What are the obstacles to me doing more work like that?
6. What are the opportunities to doing more work like that?

Good luck with finding that happiness at work, it'll make a huge difference to your life.

Why Google Employees Quit

It's hard to believe from the hype but some people actually quit working at Google! The Google employment brand has been a big bonus for them, the story that it's the holy grail of employers with the best perks, best salaries, and untold opportunity is one that is greeted by many as an absolute truth. But thanks to Techcrunch we have some real reviews from employees who have left, it makes interesting reading. And while Google still sounds like a good place to work the result is that it may depend a lot on WHERE you are and WHO you work for if it's going to be a good place for YOU to work. 

I happen to think it's a pretty big positive that they actually go to the trouble of asking people who left why, it's no secret that it's a pretty rare thing in most companies to conduct an exit interview (mostly because they are too scared to hear the answers). And the fact that some people were unhappy is certainly not unusual considering the massive growth they've had. It's also obvious from many of the people that the high expectations they had before joining Google were part of the reason they were uncomfortable when they finally arrived. Expectations founded in your imagination are never easy to meet in reality.

Why Google Employees Quit .

Social Networking Tips for the Laid Off

As usual Scoble cuts through the crap with his view of how to help yourself with social networking to get a job. I think he has some really good points in this article. But at the same time some of his suggestions aren't going to be practical if you've done zero social networking in the past. The key will be to use some of it and disregard the rest.

My favourite tips are:

2. Remove all LOLCats from your blog.

3. Remove all friends from your facebook and twitter accounts that will embarrass you.

4. Demonstrate you are “clued in.” This means removing ANYTHING that says you are a “social media expert” from your Twitter account. There is no such thing and even if there were there’s no job in it for you. Chris Brogan already has that job and he’s not giving it up.

He actually gets pretty animated about these LOLCat things. I guess if he hates them then there is a good chance a potential employer might hate them too. But remove friends Robert? C'mon, what kind of person doesn't have at least one friend who embarasses us now and again? I'm pretty sure I've been that friend for someone at some point.

http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/12/if-you-are-laid-off-heres-how-to-socially-network/

The Impact of a Recession on New Graduates

Today I read a short but polarising post from Matthew Yglesias (via a tweet from @jencorbett on Twitter - blog here). In response to a reader he went looking for information on the impact of a recession on the careers of new graduates. While it seems obvious that their short-term ability to find work would be seriously compromised due to less jobs and competition from experienced workers, he was also shocked to find that the long term impact was also horrific.

Indeed, the news is almost shockingly dismal. Research from Paul Oyer and Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter & Andrew Heisz suggests that the negative impact on earnings of first entering the labor force amidst a recession lasts anywhere from ten years to forever. 

Matthew goes on to explain that when he was a freshman in 1999 it was easy for people to get well-paid jobs because of the tech boom. But by 2003 that was long gone and the people who graduated then had more competition and therefore got lesser jobs and started in a less prestigious firm which can have a "life-long impact on your earnings". 

Where it really get's fun is how he ends the post:

Long story short, life is cruel and unfair, which is one of many reasons why we need economic and social justice and why talk about the infinite justice of market outcomes shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Matthew is a great blogger, it's neat how he uses a real study to jump to his own experience and then uses that to make his final statement, which reflects his opinion not reality. Problem here is that if you're a recent grad and you believe his opinion then you are going to get yourself into a whole heap of dog dodo blaming "economic and social injustices" from keeping you from getting a good job or earning as much another person, or whatever.

The reality is that life is hard but your time of birth is not one of the social and economic injustices that society is going to fight to cure for you. To believe it's a social injustice that you're born at a certain time is so incredibly weird you're only going to mess yourself up thinking about it. So avoid reading things like this. Sure it might feel good to blame a larger entity than yourself at times, but just remember it won't make an iota of difference to changing your own situation. 

The Job - Is This The Inevitable Future of Professional Work?

The Job is a slick short with an interesting story. There is no doubt that for labor this style of hiring has been a reality for years, but how would professionals feel if they were chosen the same way?

The Job, was created by Screaming Frog Productions. Written & Directed by Jonathan Browning and acted & crewed by some of the most amazing people on the planet! The Job has played at over 100 international film festivals and has been honored with 27 awards. Please support independent films by visiting us at... 

www.ScreamingFrog.com 

www.TheJobTheShort.com 

www.JonathanBrowning.com 

www.LeslieMcManus.com